


Another Universe in 18 Seconds or Less

by onemorethingishouldntdo



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: AU, And You May Hate Yourself After Reading This Too, F/M, Jessica Hates Herself, Kilgrave Wins, Read at Your Own Risk, What if Jessica Jones Lost?, the darkest timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 11:17:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5783365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onemorethingishouldntdo/pseuds/onemorethingishouldntdo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The biggest mistake Jessica Jones ever made was letting Kilgrave touch her scar. AU 1,000 Cuts</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Universe in 18 Seconds or Less

 

He lounged in her peeling pleather office chair like he owned it. His oxfords were propped up on the desk, and his laced hands supported the back of his head as he gazed upward at the ceiling with wistful impatience.  “I’ll miss this. Your provincial, yet snappy repartee. We make a good team.”

  
Stuck in the doorway, Jessica glared at him. She hated him. She hated his arrogance. She hated his stupid need to wear only the best of everything just to make the world around him look badly dressed in comparison. But most of all she hated the way he looked at her without even making eye contact. As if they had a secret.  “You’re a lot of shitty things, but I never thought you were delusional.”

 

“Oh?” He swung his feet down and stood up. A watery beam of purple dusk seeped through the window blinds and over his scrawny face. His eyes glinted with colors too dark to name. “I see things very clearly.” 

 

“Not if you think I could ever feel anything for you other than pure disgust.” 

 

Casually, he walked around the desk, his index finger dragging across its surface, before he sat down on top of it on the other side. "Well, that's crap.  

_  
This is my apartment. He’s not some fucking principal scolding me in his office. Enough._

  
She stormed past the doorframe, ignoring the roiling unease in her gut. With each step she spat out another fragment of the declaration she’d wanted to say for so long, “I never not for one second — "

“No, not for one second. Eighteen.” He gripped the lip of the desk hard enough his knuckles bulged.

“In what universe.” 

“Ours.” Low. Soft. Firm. “On that rooftop.” 

Her face went slack, a cloying sweetness fizzing on her dry tongue. Of all the moments she'd spent with him, this was one the ones she had tried the hardest to forget. It had never worked. 

“You remember,” he coaxed, his voice just gravelly as it used to when they’d wake up in bed together. “It was late, just like it is now.”

Just like that she was floating in the space between one heartbeat and the next. His commands always started like this, with a sense of disconnection from the real world that grew and grew until she was so hungry for any kind of gravity she let him pull her into his orbit. Every word was a tether.

_“You love me, Jessica Jones.”_

 

_“You need me.”  
_

 

_“You wouldn’t make it without me.”_

 

_“When I touch you, doesn’t everything feel right with the world?”_

 

Her throat hurt when she swallowed. 

 

“My twelve hours had come and gone, so I wasn’t controlling you when I leaned in to kiss you.” Kilgrave finally straightened fully, her little desk creaking as he released it. “And you you didn’t run.” 

 

She could smell him. Not his sin-bin stench of fast-food and burnt hair, but his old cologne of overripe lemons and fresh, wild leaves of some foreign tree. She wasn’t sure if it was her PTSD or if he had bought it again. Either way, she inhaled out of habit. 

 

_“You smell better than a Paris parfumiere, Jessica. And I bet I smell even better to you. We’re chemical, aren’t we?”_

 

Just the memory of the wretch of pleasure in her stomach made her want to vomit. 

 

He hovered a foot or so away, his sharp, thin silhouette blocking out what little light was left.  “You kissed me back.” 

 

Behind her ear her scar ached. She felt cynical gratitude for the pain. Physical suffering was almost as good an antidote to him as guilt. “No.” 

  
He eyed her warily. “You can’t tell me you don’t remember.”  
 

“I remember vividly,” she rasped

  
He flinched, but recovered his composure quickly, tapping the desk, before gesturing with the same hand. “Well, do tell your side of the story, then.”  
 

She cut the barrier between them from feet to inches. “I had waited so fucking long for that moment. For one little chance to get away.” 

“And why didn’t you?” This time he didn’t cringe back, but leaned forward into her personal space. Daring her. 

“ _Come closer, Jessica.”_

She looked away first, focusing on the blotted coffee stains on her carpet. They weren't shaped like his face. “I tried. I didn’t kiss you, that’s for sure. I got up on the ledge of your little fucking penthouse, and…” 

 

“ _Get down from there, Jessica.”_

 

“Then what?” 

 

Her toes had been peaking out over the abyss. It had been so far down. But she had known she would be fine. Maybe she’d have sprained a kneecap or two, but she’d have made it. Only his commands had lingered, like after-images from staring at the same picture for too long. 

 

_“Stay with me, Jessica.”_

 

She had glared down at her feet, just like she was now, willing them to budge. Just an inch. Then another. But it didn’t work. It’d been like trying to suddenly become telepathic. She was so close, but she couldn’t. She hadn’t. Some part of her hadn’t want—

 

_It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault._

 

“And then what, Jessica?” A steely promise of a command lurked behind his question.

 

The vertigo had made her head swim. Thinking about it now, made her want to throw up too. But she would not give him the satisfaction of breaking down. Her eyebrows puckered and she looked upwards abruptly into his pathetic beady brown eyes. “I didn’t jump. You stopped me before I could.” 

 

“Revisionist bullshit.” He scowled like a prissy school girl. 

 

“No, it isn’t.”  _I’m winning._ She sidled closer, left fist clenched. She wrapped her plan around her like armor: _tell him the truth and then punch him in the jaw_. 

 

“You wanted to stay with me.” He retreated, bumping against her desk. Cornered. 

 

“If you really believed that, then why were you angry enough at me to make me cut off my own ear?” 

 

“Stop.” His already pasty face went pale as hers, and with nowhere else to go, he charged forward. “I know you, Jessica. I know what I saw.” 

 

The most dangerous thing about Kilgrave’s lies were that he believed him. Close enough to snap his neck, Jessica couldn’t deny that reality anymore. But he couldn’t deny her’s either.

 

Roughly, she pulled away her hair away from her neck, twisting her body to make sure he saw it. The stuffy air of the office felt hot against the delicate shell of her mangled ear. “I know this.” 

 

 It was impossible read his reaction, but she thought it might’ve been surprise. The silent, tentative way he reached hinted at that, yet he must’ve been quicker than he looked, because before she could punch him in the jaw, he was touching her. Really touching her for the first time in eight months. 

 

Oh, she’d touched him plenty of times, her little fake seduction in the hermetically sealed room being the closest she’d come to a caress. But it had always been under her parameters. Her control. Now suddenly, it wasn’t and that made all the difference. 

 

Before she was free, he had loved to feel her and he had made her love it too. She hadn’t at first. His caresses had been either too soft or his kisses too sharp, all teeth. He  had sweated profusely, though his skin had always been cold. But after enough of his commands, none of that had mattered. 

 

She remembered the one that broke her like it was yesterday. 

 

“ _Have you ever done heroin, Jessica? That’s what I feel like to you.”_

 

When she told him, no, she hadn’t, he stuck a needle in her arm just to give her the frame of reference.  Sweet numbness had burrowed into her bones until her knees were weak and she had sagged into his embrace. He had held her up like a tango dancer dipping his partner. He'd gazed deep into her eyes.

 

“ _You love me, Jessica.”_

 

_“I love you.”_

 

 

He hadn’t ever needed to use the needle again after that. Because she had remembered. 

 

She remembered now. 

 

“Jessica,” he breathed.

 

His hand was gentle as it followed the ridges of her scar tissue, as if he was going to make a fucking topographical map  Careful. When he reached the end, he stopped. “I did do this didn’t I.” There was an exhaustion in his words she’s never heard before. A grounding. “I am sorry for that. That’s not what I wanted. That’s not who I wanted to be, Jessica. Not to you.”

_No._

 Emptiness branched through the tributaries of her lungs. Her blood ached for oxygen, but she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t scream. Her fist unclenched. _Think of Hope. Think of Trish. Think of his parents. Think of anything._

It had hurt, what he did to her. She hadn't admitted that really until just now. She'd let herself feel violated, ashamed, and angry of course. So much rage. And fear. But pain. Loss. Oh no. That she had hid far far away. Because what kind of sick sad girl would she be if she felt sad. Not just because he had stolen her life, but because there were moments when she actually told herself that it was her fault. If she was stronger she could've stopped him. Could've changed him. If she was better he wouldn't have done this to her. He wouldn't have raped her, while saying he loved her. He would've...

She couldn't even think it. 

And that was her downfall.  Because now all it took was one touch of his hand, one false-hearted apology, and she wavered. Just for a second. Barely enough at all. Except the memories of his mind control was so strong, that was all it needed to slither back into her synapses, grabbing ahold of the reigns of the emotion and tugging her in exactly the direction he wanted.   
  
_He doesn't get to do this. He doesn't --_

She swayed. 

It was too late. She knew it even before her knees buckled and his hand cupped the small of her back. 

“Steady,” he whispered. “Stand still, now.” 

Her knees locked. 

His eyes flicked upward, their gazes meeting and with a sickening dread, she watched the realization dawn across his face. 

She tried to pull away, but her muscles felt like taffy. 

The smile that had been threatening his lips for the past half-hour burst into a full wide grin, “Oh, my darling. Look at that.” 

_No. No. No. Oh God, I'm better than this. I'm better than --_

He laughed, a shrill joyous cry, and darted a kiss on her cheek. It lasted only seconds, but she could still feel the imprint of him like a brand. Chin to his chest, he carefully checked her body for signs of motion. 

She couldn’t even twitch. 

“It’s true,” he whispered, more to himself than her. “You’re really mine? And why, because I apologized. Oh, Jessie, if I had known a little thing like that was all you needed, I would’ve done this ages ago. ” 

_Fuck no._

She focused on the pain, the memory of the wet blood behind her ear, in her bed, on her hands, on having to shove a bullet into Trish’s mouth so she wouldn’t kill herself. On finding Reuben in the bed just one room over. Of pulling his head off. 

   
“You raped me,” her accusation came out breathy. His Jessica’s voice. But she said it. She fucking said it.

  _Laugh at me, you bastard. Tell me I’m wrong. Give it to me a reason to kill you. Come on._

 But he didn’t laugh, instead he groomed her hair back over the cut. "I'll never do that again, Jessica. It will be all with your consent now."

It was a lie. But some fucking pathetic degraded part of her wanted to believe it.   _Fuck!_

"No, you can't--" 

  
"Shhh." His smile curdled at the edges. “Quiet now and listen.” His fingers lingered in her hair, stroking her cheek.  


 “ _You want to kiss me, Jessica. Don’t you? You want to taste me.”_

 His orders new and old pressed down her thoughts, muting them, until she was hollow and ready to be filled, like a concert hall before a symphony. No matter how hard she tried she found herself waiting, so curious to hear his next word her eyes traced and retrace the curves of his thin lips. His commands numbed  the low-levels of agony her subconscious had endured for the past six months. It didn't feel good. It didn't feel like anything at all. And after so much fucking pain that was almost as enticing as pleasure. 

_Fuck me. Once a selfish, self-destructive bitch always a self-destructive bitch._

   
“I will never hurt you like that again, Jessie,” he swore. 

 

The cold relief washing through her felt like death, even as she knew that death now was further away than it ever would be. He’d make sure of it. 

 

_He’ll never hurt me again. He'll never let me hurt again._

 

“You’ll never hurt me again,” her words came out harsh, demanding even though they were only a whisper. 

 

It was almost as if she was commanding him too, because he parroted her sentence back at her, still stroking her like she was some kind of recovered pet, “I’ll never hurt you again, Jessie.” 

 

It shouldn’t have worked. She had woken up fucking screaming from nightmares just like this. She loathed him. 

 

But that wasn’t enough. 

 

It never was. 

 

Not when she clearly loathed herself more.


End file.
